Even though the official state church was the Church of Ireland, the vast majority of Ireland’s population was Catholic, so these records should help in finding early births, marriages and deaths.

These records are significant because some of them pre-date civil registration which began in 1864 (except for non-Catholic marriages which began in 1845). Since Irish emigration peaked during the famine (1845-1852) and post-famine years prior to when most civil registration began, these records are an important resource for many Irish-Catholic ancestors who left during that period.

We’ve also released indexes to Ireland’s civil births (over 9 million records), marriages (more than 4.5 million) and deaths (6.6 million) from 1864 to 1958. Included in the Births index is James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, shown below.

If you can’t find your ancestors in our new Catholic or civil registers, there’s a good chance you’ll spot them in Ireland, Births and Baptisms, 1620–1881 – a collection of more than 5 million births taken from church, civil, family and other records.

As you may know, many of the Irish census records were destroyed which makes Irish family history difficult. These indexes cover the same period, so they may help to fill in the frustrating gaps in your family tree.

Start searching our Irish records today. Let us know if you make any interesting discoveries!

About the Ancestry.com.au blog

Here you will find informational, and sometimes fun, posts from the folks behind the scenes here at Ancestry.com.au. We hope you’ll notice just how passionate we are about family history and about the products we’re building to help connect families over distance and time.